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Last Airbender, The (US - BD RA)

Gabe wishes he could Mind-Bend this film adaptation right out of his head...

Feature

One hundred years ago all four nations – Fire, Wind, Earth, and Water – lived in peace. Balance was kept by the Avatar, a master of all four forms of elemental manipulation, but the newest Avatar disappeared, just in time for the Fire Nation to attack and enslave the other nations. A century into the conflict, two Water tribe teenagers, Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) discover the Avatar frozen in the South Pole ice. Somehow, the Air Nomad, Aang (Noah Ringer), is still a child. Meanwhile, exiled Fire Nation Prince Zuko (Dev Patel), searches for Aang in hopes of regaining his honour.

Nerd Alert. Nerd Alert. Regular readers here should know my personal experience with the Avatar: The Last Airbender – I love it so much I ended up getting some of my slushiest quotes on the official Wikipedia page. These gushing reviews have been some of the most regularly popular on the sight as well. When I heard about M. Night Shyamalan’s goal to adapt the series to live action I was pretty much appalled, especially since I’d just seen The Happening. I’d actually be unhappy no matter who was announced as director, except maybe the creators themselves – the show just ended, there’s no reason to adapt to live action so soon. With every bit of leaked information of the production the narrative developed into a practical horror story laced with every thing a fan would not want to happen to their favourite series.

The most prominent failure is Shyamalan’s insistence on a serious, almost dour tone. The first season of the show, which this film is based on, is pretty darn whimsical, and even the darker third season is full of jokes, gags and levity. Comedy is a big part of the series’ appeal, and without the balance Last Airbender becomes another too serious for its own good Shyamalan film (who managed a good blend of drama and comedy for Signs). And we knew this before the film was ever released thanks to early interviews. At one point he admitted he didn’t get the point of Momo (who does make about a 20 second appearance), and that his kids had to beg him to use the creature. The other controversial choice announced before release was the casting of Anglo actors in Asian roles. One could argue that the drawing style doesn’t necessarily dictate race, but the roles of various Asian cultures is huge in the series. Shyamalan, an Indian (well, and American of Indian decent) missed the chance to embrace this heritage, except the Fire Nation, who is filled in mostly by Indians. So for the purposes of this story, the only brown skinned people are villains. As if to add insult to injury Shyamalan insists on pronouncing all the character names in proper Chinese, which makes no sense since they’re no longer Asian in appearance.

But here’s the kicker: Sokka, Katara, and their grandmother are white – everyone else in the Southern Water Tribe looks pretty Eskimo-ish.

Even if we ignore how little the series and movie have in common, we have to acknowledge that Shyamalan totally missed half the magic, and embraced a deadly serious post- Lord of the Rings tone, and doesn’t let up. There’s no real break from the trudge. This is a serious problem when it comes to adaptation, way beyond hiring a bunch of whities in the lead. And worse than painfully dire, it grows painfully boring, and feels like an uphill battle at about the 20 minute mark. The plot is even more episodic than the series, skipping stones and generating an amorphous blob of a story. Look, here’s some possibly interesting inner mythology moment, or believable character development, now watch it float away as we keeping running to that big battle climax!

I’ve often wondered about the wisdom in hiring director who’s made a point out of avoiding showing any real action to make a film where people throw elements of the earth at each other. The action is, indeed, a huge misstep for the most part. Shyamalan uses way too much slow-motion. The fights do get better, and some of the choreography is pretty impressive, but Shyamalan mostly drops the ball. He’s definitely got an eye for some epic shots, but when characters start swinging fire and water at each other it starts to look a little cheap, like the CG guys really picked up the pace, and all the outdoor set pieces were stolen from old Star Trek sets. Shyamalan does to pretty well with the special effects, considering his career of basically ignoring them, but even the big blow-em-up lacks polish. And not enough monsters action, Knight, if you’re going to take pages from Peter Jackson’s play book (I mean, you got his cinematographer) make sure it has a lot of monsters on it.

Video

Occasionally it looked a little cheap to me, but Shyamalan is incapable of making ugly features, so this 1080p transfer is pretty close to perfect. Details are super sharp even in busy, colour washed shots. Blacks are sharp, and the contrasting colours are realistically rendered. The darkest night shots lack the pin point contrast of colour, and there’s a little bit of chunky grain to mess it up too. Digital noise is not a problem, though the spirit world is a little more peppered than the rest of the film. Colour plays a pretty important role, as should be expected from something inspired by both a cartoon and modern Chinese cinema. Hues are bold, and set up well against de-saturated blacks and grays.

Audio

The DTS-HD soundtrack gets off to an incredible start with the pre-credits, and their fire, earth, water, and air. The track’s big theme is the swish effect when someone whips some element across the screen in slow motion. I’m a little disappointed at the volume levels of some of the effects during the speed ramping. When things slow down the LFE seems to be suctioned down. Otherwise the crumble and rumble of the LFE is pretty spectacular. All in all a slightly overproduced track, with plenty of surprises. The only thing that surprises me is how low James Newton Howard’s score is mixed, though the score's mediocrity is pretty shocking as well. Usually a Howard score is the one thing a Shyamalan movie will get right. Even The Happening

Extras

Extras Begin with ‘Discovering The Last Airbender’ (HD, 50:00), a 9 part making of featurette. This includes discussion of the characters (which would’ve been nice during the movie) set to raw behind the scenes footage, as well as cast and crew. Creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko disappoint in their reactions. The word ‘spirituality’ is thrown around consistently by everyone, as is a bunch of pretension. There are also featurettes on locations and costumes. There is a slight explanation as to actor race, that doesn’t really satisfy either.

Next up is ‘Siege of the North’ (HD, 18:30) a more focused, fly on the wall look at the climatic fight, choreography and production design. ‘Origins of the Avatar’ (HD, 7:20) is a pleasant discussion with creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and their journey. ‘Katara for a Day’ (HD, 4:30) sort of speaks for itself, and is a behind the scenes day with actress Nicola Peltz. There are four deleted scenes (HD, 11:20) most of them glimpsed during the film itself during montages. The cuts were good choices, though we get an Easter egg look at the Kyoshi warriors. Things end with a gag real (HD, 4:30), and ‘Avatar Annotations’ – PiP footage, most of which can be found elsewhere in the extras.

Overall

In the end I’m not sure who this film was made for. If you liked Avatar the Last Airbender the series, I can all but guarantee that you’ll hate the movie’s total change of tone. If you’ve never seen Avatar the Last Airbender series you’ll probably be disappointed by the iffy action, and speed-of-light plotting that holds no dramatic tension or pull, and thinly drawn characters. It’s an occasionally good looking movie, and that alone will hopefully it will drum up more interest for the series, which is still great.

*Note: The images on this page are not representative of the Blu-ray image quality.

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This film could have said so much more and been very deep. I am a martial artist and unfortunately this movie was my introduction to this fantastic American cartoon that borrows from cultures/martial arts from around the world. Such a huge disappointment. At least the DBZ movie was corny funny in certain parts, this film falls utterly flat. Definitely plan on watching the whole cartoon series of Airbender though. Controlling elements with martial arts skills is just awesome.

I nominate Stephen Chow for the sequel. He would have made a fantastic film.

If there is a sequel, can we please get M. Night to stay far far away from it. I halfway enjoyed the film for the visuals and music, but the script proves once again that M Night should quit being his own screenwriter

The humor was gone, names pronounced wrong, Asian characters played by Indian actors. The hair on the main bad guy, wrong, his scar, barely visible. The humor of the uncle, gone. The 2 animal characters who are funny and great in the show, barely used. He just didn't get it. Maybe the director should be required to watch the entire series before making a movie. Why didn't the creators speak up? Money? Who knows, it was a huge flop. Some cool visuals, but when the story is lifeless and loses the fun of the original material, it doesn't work.

I guess I prefer adaptations that try something different (even when they fail) to boring messes that skip through the original material's plot points. I think in the end both movies missed the point, but I'd actually watch DBE again if it was on TV or something.

Actually, I quite like Dragon Ball, and get some guilty pleasure out of DBZ, AND I didn't HATE that movie.

My review is on the site, as are my gushy Avatar the series reviews if you want to check them out.

Yup, I've check them out already & agree w/ your points. Still, you dismiss Last Airbender coz you love Avatar and you didn't hate DBE coz you're just a passing admirer of DBZ. The problem is, DBE is not even DBZ, It's based on DB story arc that preceed DBZ which should've focus on the journey/adventure of an innocent boy instead of teens romance.

Unlike Last Airbender, DBE missed the whole point. It's like turning Toy Story into High School Musical.